Growing up in Nigeria, there was this weekly midnight program on Galaxy TV (or was it NTA?) that showed American movies. We would stay up, fighting sleep, and sometime just before 12am in the morning when the movie would start, I would doze off, waking up the next morning thoroughly frustrated.

Today, there’s Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, YouTube…offering so much films. Yet we would scroll, scroll and scroll, not knowing what to chose from. Similar things can be said about food. We didn’t even have fridge to store food. We just ate what our grandma cooked. But now, there’s everything in the fridge and pantry, yet we sometimes find it hard to make a choice.

We think more options means greater opportunity for satisfaction. But this is not the case. The simpler the better.

When many students in America can’t seem to choose their major once and for all, I think of this phenomenon.

I feel for sisters at the prime of their beauty, getting proposals from every angle, imagining how overwhelmed getting approached by multitude men can be for them.

When men are having difficulty choosing the woman they want, I think of how easier it would be if we all were just in our little bubble, our small community, with a very limited number of prospects, instead of…

Remember, the simpler the usually better.

وَمَا ٱلۡحَيَوٰةُ ٱلدُّنۡيَآ إِلَّا مَتَٰعُ ٱلۡغُرُورِ

…the life of this world is only an illusory pleasure. (-Surah Al-Hadid, Ayah 20)

• repost 2021.